Curse of the Celts

by Clara O'Connor

  Marcus’s attempt to fade into the trees while the group’s attention was on the fight was blocked by the scarred rider who smiled wolfishly down from his horse as soon as Marcus took his first couple of backwards steps. I needed to do something. Devyn was not going to beat the girl, and even if he did, I sincerely doubted that her friends would be happy just to let them walk away.

  Callum had said I should try to avoid using powerful magic when I was out in the open. The hounds of Samhain had my scent, and he felt they were unlikely to give me up so easily. Apparently, they were not bound to either the borderlands or that night. Nor would they be caught unawares as they had the first time. But what choice did I have?

  I sucked in a steadying breath and stepped out from behind my tree. I focused, as Callum had taught me, letting my consciousness flow out as I exhaled and dragged in energy from the forest around me with each breath. Devyn’s consciousness distracted me from my task; he could feel me trying to summon my power. I shook him away. I needed to concentrate. I breathed in and out, but still it wasn’t working. Despite my recent training, I continued to fail to command the energy to come to me. I opened my eyes and lifted my head, taking in the scene below me. Devyn was pushed back against a tree. He was tiring. What was worse, he had ceased to attack and had retreated to defence only. As if he could sense my approach, his head snapped towards me. I made my way down the track, drawn helplessly to a fight I could not possibly hope to assist. He shook his head at me and I stopped, confused. What had I missed? Why, when he was so clearly losing, was he taking the time to wave me back?

  With the bond open I realised I couldn’t sense any fear, though there was some fatigue. What was oddest of all was the mischief I could suddenly identify, and in the same moment, he pounced forward, new energy in his arm as he feinted and parried with his sparring partner.

  The girl danced backwards, their struggle taking on a new rhythm as she wove her way back across the clearing. I couldn’t quite understand what was happening. One moment Devyn had been fighting for his life and now it felt like he was playing a game. Confused, I looked around at the rest of the people in the glade. Her fellow riders clearly didn’t like the change of tempo and were leaning forward, watching uneasily. But it was the scarred rider who caught my eye. I looked back at the girl fighting Devyn; she too was starting to flick glances at the rider. It felt like she was warning him off.

  Her footwork was slowly growing clumsier while Devyn pressed her harder, and then she was on the ground. From where I stood, I could finally see her face as her scarf had drooped around her neck in the fight. Her eyes widened as she fell, but looking back up at her opponent from the ground, a familiar mocking grin spread across her face. Devyn turned slightly towards where I stood and winked.

  I glared back, and our eyes held as I saw his widen with shock and pain. I flinched at the echo stabbing into my own body. Across the clearing, the rider who stood in front of Marcus had a second knife ready in his hand.

  “No.” The scarred rider had decided to disobey his leader’s instruction not to intervene. His knife was now sticking out of Devyn’s shoulder. The girl on the ground turned to the rider, attempting to rise and put her body in between them, her long dark braid falling loose.

  Devyn fell back, his hand going to the injured shoulder. Rage and fear surged through me. I had rained a storm down on Richmond in his defence, and I would flatten this forest, this entire island, if he died. I ran forward, my sights set on the rider still nonchalantly weighing his next throwing knife, delaying his follow-up in light of his leader’s defence of Devyn.

  “Cass,” Devyn called. “No, stop.”

  He took a few faltering steps towards me, but I was only half aware as the hum of power surged through me, alive and vengeful. He stumbled past the girl who had dropped her sword to the ground.

  She swore as she too stepped towards me, her hands raised in surrender. Well she might surrender; I would leave nothing of any of them but red mist on the grass.

  “Damn, no. Cassandra.” She knew my name. How did she know my name? These were the people who were chasing us and I was so bloody tired of being hunted. I would become the hunter. Let these people be a lesson to the next who came to try and hurt us.

  But as I took in the scene before me, Devyn stood between me and my prey.

  “Get out of my way,” I snarled, not even registering that his injury could hardly be fatal if he had made his way towards me. He had one hand pressed to the bleeding handle, the other raised palm up towards me. The leaves rustled angrily as my power swirled around the clearing.

  “No, Cass. Hush, it’s okay,” he said soothingly. “It was a mistake. They’re friends. Friends. It’s okay.”

  His certainty pulsed through the bond.. His walls were fully down, his emotions flooding through to me, damping the rage that surged through my body. I looked back at him, confused. These people were not my friends. I narrowed my gaze at the woman he had been fighting. The one who started all this. Bronwyn stood there, his friend from the Treaty Renewal, wearing the clothes of the rider he had fought. Her scarf was pulled down, framing her pale, fine-boned face, wisps of dark hair whipping free of her braid and across her face in the wind that surged around us.

  Devyn stepped closer, his palm cupping my cheek, dragging my attention away from my targets. I didn’t understand. I wanted to take them down.

  “Shhh, everything’s all right.” His dark eyes were gentle and I couldn’t follow what he was trying to tell me, the power swirled within me, demanding release. I was aware of Devyn’s closeness but remained tense and ready for action. He had left himself vulnerable – his back was to our enemies – and I shifted to put them back in my view. At a gesture from Bronwyn, the mounted warriors dropped their swords, the one with the scar slow to sheathe his second knife. I allowed the storm to swell and the trees by him swayed precariously; he was the most significant threat, the one who would be first to strike. Had already been the first to strike. He had hurt Devyn.

  Devyn, whose lips were gently touching mine, his whispers gentling me, distracting me as they had that first time that nature responded to my call, deepening his kiss, sweeping in, my being lighting with a different kind of fire. The winds gentled as his kiss deepened, his lips moving across mine, then nibbles at my jaw and soothing whispers in my ear. I wrapped my arms around him, my fingers as always anxious to wind themselves through his hair. My hand ran down his back, his hand awkward at his side, a jarring note in the new song that he had started in my body. His shoulder. I gasped, pulling back. He was bleeding. Finally, coming to, I reached for his hand to see how bad the injury was. He had closed the connection between us and I had lost all sense of it.

  “Marcus,” I called urgently. “Marcus, please.”

  He shook his head, his green eyes coming alert as he ran to his bag and carried it over with him. The scarred rider sat unmoving, watching the scene.

  “Well, well, if we haven’t caught our three little mice,” he drawled, his eyes on me.

  I glared at him before turning on Bronwyn who still stood hesitantly a few feet away. “What have you done?”

  “It wasn’t exactly me,” she sighed, indicating behind her at the unrepentant rider.

  “The two of you,” I rounded on Devyn. “You knew and kept going anyway.”

  “It had been a while,” he said. “I wanted to see if she had improved any.”

  He hissed as Marcus examined the hilt of the knife in his shoulder. Bronwyn watched worriedly.

  “Dammit, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t see his face. There were two men and we were looking for three of you. I thought they might be from the city in pursuit,” she gabbled, tripping over her words in an attempt to explain. “I’m sorry, Devyn.”

  “Don’t be. It wasn’t you who did it,” he snarled towards the now dismounted rider as we helped Devyn to the ground.

  “What? Like I was going to sit there and let some Shadower scum scratch up my favourite princess,
” Scar said as he stood over Devyn.

  “I wasn’t going to harm her.”

  “No way for me to know that,” he replied. Leaning down, Scar wrapped his hand around the knife where Marcus had removed Devyn’s shirt and was cleaning the entry site and pulled it roughly from where it sat just below Devyn’s shoulder.

  The pain lanced through me, and I launched myself at the dark swirl of leather and cloak.

  He caught me and we tumbled to the ground, his grip on my wrists holding my clawed hands at bay.

  “Now, now, kitty cat, put your claws away… or do you want me to kiss it better?” he soothed, laughing in my face as he held me. I pulled and kicked ineffectually, wishing for a spark of magic to light within me. But with the real danger having dissipated, there was no sign of it.

  “Let her go, Gideon, or I will end what’s left of your pretty-boy looks,” Devyn’s face growled from above us.

  “Spoilsport.”

  I was free and scrambled to stand and regain what dignity I had left.

  I looked aghast at the blood trickling down Devyn’s torso before turning back to my recent wrestling partner. I pulled my arm back, tucked my thumb on the outside as Callum had taught me during a more practical session, and struck with full force right on his elegantly straight nose. His head reared back and when it righted, blood was pouring down his face, giving me the strongest sense of satisfaction I had known in a very long time.

  “Ha,” he said, “it looks like your little kitten here can scratch, after all.”

  “Good for you, Cass,” Bronwyn approved, turning to the tall, broad-shouldered warrior. “Enough, Gideon. Walk away.”

  With a smirk in my direction he bowed out.

  I glared at the oaf and, turning, caught the glance that Bronwyn and Devyn exchanged.

  “It’s got to be said, I nearly had you.” Devyn smiled up at his recent opponent from where Marcus had seated him in order to tend his wound.

  “Hardly,” she retorted.

  “I held my own,” Devyn defended himself.

  “Ha. Some champion,” Bronwyn bantered, while Marcus mopped blood from the wound to get a clear view.

  A sadness haunted Devyn’s dark eyes as he watched the knife-throwing ass attend to his horse. “The path not walked.”

  Bronwyn’s lids lowered to cover her eyes at her faux pas. “We’ll have to train you back up now though, hey?”

  “He’s going to need stitches,” Marcus announced.

  “You can’t just heal him?” I asked quietly.

  He shook his head. “No, I’ve already tried. I don’t know how to treat open wounds with magic, and I don’t think I’ve recovered enough yet anyway. We’re going to need a fire,” he informed Bronwyn, her cold gaze reminding him that she hadn’t forgotten that they had unfinished business. “And a needle and thread.”

  “Sounds fun,” Devyn murmured. His hand felt cold in mine and I wrapped both of mine around his, whether to warm him or reassure myself I wasn’t sure.

  Devyn gritted his teeth and showed little sign of his pain as Marcus pulled the needle in and out of his flesh, stitching back together what Gideon had sundered. At Devyn’s warning glare, to show less concern I was forced to retreat out of the glade under the pretext that I was squeamish. Instead I walked off the tightness that wound every sinew and muscle in my body, before we mounted or doubled up on the horses to continue north.

  I felt hollowed out as I watched Devyn sleep in the light of the fire while Bronwyn and scarface-ass Gideon argued over what to do in the morning. Frustrated by the pace of our travel with a wounded member, Gideon was arguing that we split up, with him taking Marcus and me ahead while Bronwyn could travel slowly behind with Devyn.

  “No,” I said quietly across the fire, repeating it louder until they finally turned to look at me. “No, no, no.”

  Gideon raised a brow, the arch pulling at the scar on his face.

  “No?” he queried, the smirk I had begun to recognise as habitual playing on his lips.

  “No,” I repeated. “We will not be splitting up. Devyn has got us this far and we are not leaving him behind. “

  Gideon narrowed his eyes. “Fine, you stick with the Griffin. It’s him that’s wanted anyway.” He nodded in the direction of Marcus’s sleeping form.

  Marcus, despite his claims that he wouldn’t be able to help Devyn with his magic, had overextended himself again, if his renewed exhaustion was anything to go by. Marcus did not trust our new travelling companions in the slightest, but he had barely made it off his horse before falling asleep.

  “You’re not splitting us up,” I repeated once more, in the hope that this time the smirking hulk might finally comprehend what I was saying.

  The smirk widened into a full-blown grin before he turned back to Bronwyn, continuing to outline his plans as though I hadn’t interrupted.

  “I don’t think I’m making myself clear,” I said quietly. “Marcus and I actually cannot be separated. It’s not a matter of choice.”

  They turned to look at me once more. Gideon frowned.

  “We’re handfasted,” I rushed on, before I lost their attention again. I pulled up my sleeve to show them the distinctive armband. “Marcus and I won’t survive being more than a few miles away from each other for an extended period.”

  “Fine. Then I’ll take you too, city girl.”

  Gideon leaned back, satisfied at the return to his original solution.

  “I’m not leaving without Devyn.”

  “Nobody is splitting the group up,” Bronwyn stated, flashing me a warning glance and a quick shake of her head. There it was again, that flash of a hint that my being with Devyn was not okay and that I would do better to hide our… whatever it was.

  “The Anglians want Marcus Courtenay. The Mercians want the Griffin. It makes sense to split up. You want me to throw the Griffin over the back of a horse and drag his arse north, with York chasing us, we can do that.” Gideon paused for emphasis. “It’ll probably kill him, but maybe that would be a kindness compared to what awaits him.”

  “What? What do you mean, what awaits him?”

  “Shut up, Gideon,” Bronwyn said. “Of course it won’t kill him. He has a wound to the shoulder; despite your best efforts, it was far from fatal.”

  Gideon snorted.

  “If that were my best shot, the Griffin would be dead. Besides, I wasn’t really even in the queue; it would hardly have been right to have robbed so many others of the pleasure.”

  Bronwyn stilled, her eyes icing over as she surveyed the languid length of the warrior laid out on the other side of the campfire.

  “You knew it was my cousin when you threw that blade?”

  Scar snorted again, pulling his cloak around him as he settled back to sleep for the night. I absorbed this new snippet of information. I had been jealous of Bronwyn from the first time I had seen her with Devyn. Admittedly, she’d had her hands all over him, which would be hard for anyone to take, even if Devyn and I hadn’t exactly been talking at the time. Cousins.

  “Gideon.” Bronwyn was coldly furious.

  “Perhaps.”

  “What? Why would you do that?”

  There was no answer from the other side of the fire.

  Bronwyn threw her cup and a grunt indicated she had found her target. It wasn’t enough for me. My grip tightened on the knife in my hand. Right now, I could quite cheerfully plunge it into the intricately tattooed neck.

  “Sheathe your claws.” His soft lilting drawl indicated he somehow knew my intentions. “If you’re going to go for blood every time somebody touches your boy, you’re going to be a busy girl.”

  “He’s not my boy,” I corrected.

  “Good.” He rolled over, away from the fire. “A city latent and the damned Oathbreaker, what a mess that would have been.”

  “What does that mean?”

  There was no answer. It seemed Gideon was done talking. Arrogant ass. I looked to Bronwyn for an explanation, surprised to
see the sad look on her face as she glanced over to where Devyn lay.

  “What does he mean?” I demanded. I couldn’t let it go. Why could Devyn and I not be together? And what awaited him when we arrived? I knew he was not loved – I had seen that much – but Gideon implied much worse lay ahead.

  Bronwyn cast me a quelling look and shook her head. But I couldn’t leave it. Since we had crossed the borderlands, Devyn had pulled away from me and Bronwyn knew why.

  “Bronwyn.”

  The pale Celtic girl glared at me now, tight-lipped. “Just go to sleep, Cassandra.”

  “What my lady doesn’t want to tell you, city girl, is that your guide may have a very short future, and what does remain certainly doesn’t involve playing happily-ever-after,” Gideon finally spoke again.

  “Gideon.” Bronwyn’s voice cracked, whip-like, across the dying embers.

  “Well, he did break his oath. You think the welcoming committee is breaking out the party food? Sharpening the knives, more like. The Griffin used up his second chance. He was a child last time. He’ll be lucky if they consider his carcass worthy of throwing to the dogs when they’re done with him.”

  Chapter Eleven

  As we rode on the next morning, I mulled over what I had learned the night before. We made better time on horseback and my feet were grateful, even if I despised the man who sat behind me. The three of us had been on foot and the group did not have extra horses to carry the recent additions to their party. Marcus rode with the smallest of Bronwyn’s men, while Devyn shared with his cousin. So far, so much sense. Why I had been lumbered with the most offensive warrior in the group was beyond fathoming, but he had insisted. Neither Devyn nor Marcus had seemed too happy with the idea either.

  When Bronwyn and I had gone down to the brook to wash up before we broke camp, she had taken the opportunity to speak privately to me.

  “Cass, you must be careful. I don’t know what’s between you and Devyn, but you are here as Marcus’s betrothed. The countryside is teeming with warriors searching for Marcus; he has value to them and as his bride, you too will be safe. But it sure looked like you were with Devyn rather than Marcus yesterday. It cannot be,” she whispered, her hand gripping mine tightly in warning.